about to buy my first 6.0.... uh oh
 

Hey guys, been looking for a crew cab short bed diesel for awhile, but seems pretty rare to find it in the 7.3 and I'd like a newer truck to go to college full time, do the reserves and work part time after I'm finished with this deployment. I also need to tow a 27 ft camper and a 22 ft boat.

Anyways long story short, my dad's friend has a 05 6.0 fx4 crew cab short bed leather etc with 174k miles for 13k. Fresh injectors, fresh-ish ficm, egr delete along with the cat, and otherwise bone stock with on time Rotella oil changes (5k or less miles) All the failure stories I read here scare me a bit, but I'm handy with a wrench and I can read stickies and tech threads alright.
It seems its been reliable and he hasn't had any issues at all.

Have any of you had positive experiences with a higher mile 6.0?
These are my favorite body style trucks, love the transmission and I like the coil front end etc. And the cab is a great bonus. I suppose I could use 7k or so and do a fummins as well...

any input guys?

I have 199,000. But if you buy the truck do expect to have problems whether you put a chip on it or not. if you are gonna chip it always be ready to blow a hg or crack a head. but on the plus side if you blow it up you can always head stud it. Also if you buy it and do anything to it i would start with a egr delete. I do love my 6.0

Egr delete would be a great idea. I have an 05 at work and it's nothing but problems with the egr unit. First the valve and now we had to replace the cooler. Not a fun job. Other than that it's a decent truck

6.0 can be a good motor, I've studied the problems of the 6.0. Clogged egr cooler(block it off). Early 6.0's had high pressure oil lines that would pop off rendering a dead motor, later 6.0's were a tad bit better. Turbo goes at Approx 100k as do injectors. Handy with a wrench you say? You are going to need more than a few wrenches when the head gasket goes. It can be expensive to fix these, but no where near the cost to fix 6.4's. I think the 6.0 can be quite dependable, it just needs the factory flaws fixed. My cousin has a6.0 and all those things went bad he was easy on the motor. He expects the head gasket to blow anytime, it's costing him $$$. I told him these things would happen.

Awesome, good to hear. The egr delete has already been completed, so I think the only things left is a good coolant flush and add a filter, verify the hpop fitting are up to date and have it studded. End goal is max 450-500 hp to the wheels. I figure with 7 grand to play with I could have it studded and at the very least get an sct, which seems to be the preferred tuner online.

Alternatively it seems relatively affordable to swap either a p pump 12 valve OR a common rail, with a 12 valve obviously taking far less time. The only trouble I read about the swap is getting the 5110r to actually play nice with the cummins and aftermarket pcs.

If you go with a swap the p-pump had seemed to be the preferred option. There is a lot less electrical mess to deal with and those pumps are a lot more dependable than the ones from the24 valves. You can always get a 24 valve and do a p-pump conversion if all else fails but that's just more work

Yours in an 05 you only need to worry about the oil fitting that connects to the hpop it's self, some actually have a bracket that solved this problem. Thinking about a 12v cummins, if you can do that cheaper, i would totally do it. 12v cummins are the $hit. Doing a head studs on the 6.0 are quite time consuming and $

I've been researching it heavily. I could swap a 12 valve and pump it up to stock 6.0 power levels for 7-10k or less. It's entirely bolt in, and well covered. The only hurdle is the pcs tuning. You loose the tow haul mode, and it will only function as an overdrive cancel switch. The dash lights will no longer be functional and stay on (i would pull the fuses and go with gauges anyways)I'll only be towing a 9k lb camper max, so it's not the biggest issue to me. But making sure it's reliable is hugely important.
The steering wheel buttons won't work without wiring either. Again not a huge issue, I don't use cruise control to begin with in any of my vehicles. It's a win win. And my county only does the snap test for emissions. So I'm good to go

Sounds like a win win. I have a 96 3500 12 valve and couldn't be happier. I just replaced my radiator tonight and can honestly feel a difference instantly. The old one was pretty bad, leaking everywhere and had rusty looking coolant. I'm sure you'll love it. Plus there's tons of power to add for free.

Rad man, it's 4k or so to fully bullet proof a 6.0, it's also pretty cheap to hit 450 on one after that but a 12v is roughly 3500 or less for a cheap solid one and injectors aftermarket are 1300 pr less vs 1300 + for stock or even way more for a set of aftermarket

4k to fully bullet proof a 6.0 who you going to? Chickity China? You need a radiator, studs /w head gasket plus re-machining the heads to perfect flat (if you want to take it a step further o-ring the heads to bite into the head gasket), either bullet proof egr or block off plates, bullet proof oil cooler, that my friend is way over 4k

I work on my 03 myself, 233,000 on it now with biggest problem the hpop just wore out a few miles ago. Just slowly loss power till I changed it. I love mine and with synthetic oil it just runs every day. I didn't do a tuner but sig. Has mods listed. I tow fifth wheel trailers, equipment trailers and whatever you want to do with a truck. If you do it right and properly maintain truck it can be reliable. Plenty of guys here are proof!

Of course of you take care of your truck it can be reliable, there just somethings that will still go bad. Head gaskets on the 6.0.....it's not if but when

That 6.0 engine is crap, we put 50,000 miles and 12,000+ on one. Do a 24v swap with an aftermarket pump or just buy a different truck... Just buy a different truck.

Look, i own a 2002 24valve cummins, i like the motor, but do i think the 6.0 is crap, no. Fix the major problems and it (I'm my opinion) should go longer than a 6.4.

Most of the problems I have seen, and I worked on a lot of em and with a lot of people who have em relates back to minor mistakes in maintenance. The wrong coolant will turn to jello in the coolant system and ruin the oil cooler and egr cooler if it hasn't been deleted. I know it sounds dumb but the coolant in the factory system doesn't mix with generic coolant. I don't know anyone with a stock truck who blew head gaskets. But a lot of improperly tuner mods blew em !

I know stock 6.0 with blown head gaskets, true about Coolant, but even the right coolant can turn into a powdery yellowish caking causing egr failure